The Finkler's: Apple Holler Trip

A smaller group of us from the Mom's Group at LLCC all headed out to Apple Holler early this morning for a Johnny Appleseed tour. The first time that I have been there on a tour like that (aside from just eating there which is always yummy!). The 'tour' included a performance on who Johnny Appleseed was, a hayride (the mystery to me there is that there was no hay?) and the children's opportunity to pick their own apple and mini pumpkin.

The show provided dear Josiah the ability to practice raising his hand to answer questions, however he usually didn't have an answer to any of them! I would imagine he's learning to raise his hand at his 4K school which is a good thing - but the performer eventually looked beyond him when she was looking for answers as he really didn't have anything to say! And there I am the MOM of it all trying to tell him not to raise his hand anymore and so then he moved on to kicking the stones all around on the floor - which is better, by far the hand raised with no answers forthcoming.

Moving on, Josiah was picked to be the bee in the performance which I wasn't completely aware of this, but a huge job of apple trees blossoming and producing apples is in fact the bee's sole resposibility to pollenate. Pretty interesting what those pesky insects are capable of - next time I am bothered by one I will kindly instruct them to relocate over to Apple Holler and focus on some pollenation there so my honey crisp apples are produced well.
After the show, we had the hayride (minus the hay). I do think that Josiah was confused about this and wondered just where the hay was. Noah could care less. He was happy just to ride! The ride was definitely COLD and started to sprinkle at the beginning and mid-way through - but then lessened up and it was a great trip. The boys had a great time, stopping out in their apple orchard to pick their very own golden delicious apple from the tree - they were a perfect height for the boys to reach and pluck off and they were so delicious! (no play on words intended there).

Noah happily settled into the rest of the ride chomping away on his apple.

With the hayride over, we got to the funnest part of the event for the children - free playtime in kid's corral - the children were hard pressed to leave after that but finally convinced them when their tummies started to get hungry.

At one point, a friend of mine asked me where Lexie was and I immediately started to panic and thought, 'oh no, where is she?' and the questions started to happen in my mind, did she fall asleep in the car and I forgot her there? Did she fall out of the wagon? - then quickly realized oh yes, I had dropped her off to my Mom's house that morning so I could just have some time with me and the boys. Funny how my immediate reaction was panic though! I've not forgotten the children yet thankfully but I remember the story of my parents who left my older sister Karen behind when we were little one day after church. I would BET that was because Karen was busy TALKING with someone and got distracted with talking vs following and so got left behind. She might think it a different story though.

Anyways, here's a few photos from the day :)